Horn sheet music

Horn in F, and everything else

Modern parts are written for horn in F and sound a perfect fifth below what is written. That much is standard.

Older parts are written for whatever crook the piece used — horn in E♭, in D, in E, in B♭ basso, and more. Each transposes differently, and orchestral players are simply expected to transpose at sight. Beethoven and Mozart parts are full of them.

A further trap in old parts: bass clef passages in nineteenth-century notation sound a fourth above written pitch rather than a fifth below. Modern editions usually correct this and say so. If a low passage sounds an octave out, this is why.

Single, double and triple horn

A single horn in F, common for beginners, cannot comfortably reach the high writing in much of the orchestral repertoire, which assumes a double horn with an F and B♭ side. This is worth checking against the range of any solo you are buying rather than discovering in the practice room.

What is free

The Mozart concerti, the Strauss First, the Schumann Konzertstück and the standard studies by Kopprasch and Maxime-Alphonse are all out of copyright. Modern editions of the Mozart are still worth buying, because the horn parts were written for an instrument without valves and editorial decisions about the hand-stopped notes vary considerably.